The Provok’d Wife

This event has expired. It has been kept on this site for reference only.

Mad in Chelsea? The Provok’d Wife gets a very modern up facelift

What happens when a Vanbrugh crashes into a Chelsea tractor? You get a modern take on The Provok’d Wife, John Vanbrugh’s Restoration comedy written in 1697.

WADS has taken the play about the hitherto virtuous Lady Brute who is provoked to infidelity by her sour husband Sir John Brute and cast it in the very modern and equally shallow world of Made in Chelsea.

In the play, the pair are married in haste – she for money, he for carnal reasons – and are now looking for diversions to alleviate the shackles of their sham wedlock. He goes off for a drunken night on the town and ends up before a magistrate, disguised in his wife’s frock. Meanwhile, she and her niece Belinda dress as Shepherd Market doxies for a secret tryst with their suitors Heartfree and Constant and are spied on by the envious Lady Fanciful, who wants Heartfree for herself. Belinda, despite interference from Lady Fanciful, wins her man and marries for love. But it ends sadly for the boozy Brute who attempts to ravish his wife, discovers two gallants lurking in his wardrobe and finally ends up accepting certain compromises rather than rather than fight a duel to satisfy his honour.

WADS took one look at the plot and thought, this story of the lives and loves of a group of massively entitled people with too much money and too much time on their hands in and around London’s most exclusive postcodes, who spend most of their time discussing their relationships with their friends, shopping and drinking, all sounds very Made in Chelsea.

Well, can you tell the difference? Which of these quotations is from The Provok’d Wife and which is from Made in Chelsea?

“I don’t have any resolutions whatsoever; how could I possibly improve upon myself?”

“What an inundation of impertinence is here coming upon us!”

“How I should despise such a thing if I were a man. What a nose she has! What a chin! What a neck! Then her eyes–and the worst kissing lips in the universe.”

“I think it sort of says, lunch, dinner and probably breakfast as well.”

If you’re not sure, you’d better come and see the show, which runs for three nights from Thursday 5 to Saturday 7 July at the Parish Hall. Doors open at 7pm for a 7:30pm start. Tickets cost £10 (£7 concessions) and are available online (wads.website, ticketsource.co.uk/wadsweb or facebook.com/WADSweb) or by telephone (01256 892514).

Silk Mill Hoardings

About Whitchurch

Whitchurch is a small Hampshire country town, nestling in the upper reaches of the River Test, surrounded by fine chalk and flint downland and tranquil countryside.

Community-run Site

This is a community-run website overseen by volunteers at Whitchurch Association, a registered charity. All content is submitted by volunteers and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Whitchurch Association.